The Benchmark General Partner tells LPs at VCJ’s Venture Alpha conference that there are a number of brights spots in the VC industry, but he’s worried that they didn’t learn to be wary of funds in excess of $1 billion.
4 min read · 23 October 2012
Bill Gurley has a message for institutional investors: Stop blasting money at what have historically been top-tier venture funds. “You’re not in the stands. You’re in the field. And when you allocate obsessively to firms in the top quartile, it will have an impact on how things play out.”
4 min read · 18 October 2012
The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) has named Cheryl Eason as its CFO, a newly created position to oversee the financial and risk management operations of the $243 billion pension fund. Eason was most recently a VP for the British Columbia Pension Corporation, one of the largest pension benefit administrators in Canada, and the largest in British Columbia.
2 min read · 17 October 2012
Redlands, Calif.-based geographic information software systems company Esri has acquired the geo-locating platform Geoloqi, based in Portland, Oregon. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
3 min read · 16 October 2012
Sausalito, Calif.-based liveBooks, a 7-year-old photo content management platform, has acquired two on-demand photo companies, Pinhole Press and Pinhole Pro. Financial details were not disclosed.
4 min read · 16 October 2012
Q.E.P., a Boca Raton, Fla.-based hardwood flooring and related products maker maker, has bid for substantially all of the assets of Harper Brush, a 112-year-old maker of cleaning products that is based in Fairifield, Iowa. The proposed purchase price to acquired all of Harper Brush's real estate, inventory, intellectual property and other assets is approximately $2.2 million.
2 min read · 16 October 2012
The Pritzker Group, based in Chicago, has added to investment professionals to its middle market private equity team: Mark Bowman and Jeff Verde. Bowman, who was hired as a vice president, was previous a principal at Austin Ventures, where he spent nine years. Verde, hired as an associate, was previously an investment banking analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co.
3 min read · 16 October 2012
Much has been written about how popular crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter are merely scratching the surface of a big funding vacuum – and taking on venture capitalists in the process. But Kickstarter may ultimately evolve into more than a replacement to VC or even a lead-in to it. Today, in fact, it becomes a direct retail outlet for a fully baked product.
4 min read · 16 October 2012
In May, Adam Marchick left Bain Capital to start his own Palo Alto-based startup, Kahuna, which has already raised “several million” dollars and attracted as cofounder the founding CTO of SugarCRM, Jacob Taylor. Its tagline: “Harnessing the power of big data insights to deliver business value to mobile application developers.”
4 min read · 15 October 2012
Zyngenia, a biopharmaceutical company that is based in Gaithersburg, Md., and is developing next-generation multi-specific antibody-based drugs, has approved the appointment of new board members:Christian Itin and Jason Rhodes.
3 min read · 11 October 2012
